Dick Prescottss Fourth Year at West Point | Page 6

I never saw anything underhanded in him."
"I wouldn't call it underhanded, either," explained Jordan. "Prescott's manner with me might much better be described as overbearing."
"It would have been underhanded, had he reported you when you were really doing nothing unmilitary or improper," interposed Stubbs quickly.
"Are you trying to defend the fellow?" demanded Jordan swiftly.
"No; Prescott, I think, is always quite ready to attend to his own defence. But I'm astonished, Jordan, at the charge you make against him, and I'm trying to understand it."
"What I object to, more than anything else," insisted Jordan, "was his making a fool of me before new yearlings. That is where I think the greatest grievance lies. First classmen are men of some dignity. We are not to be treated like plebes, especially by any members of our own class who may be dressed in a little brief authority. Sit down, won't you, Stubbs?"
"No, thank you, Jordan. I must be on my way soon."
"But I want to get you and a half a dozen other representative first classmen together," wheedled Jordan. "I think we should all talk this over as a strictly class matter. Then, if I'm convinced that I'm in the wrong, I'm going to stop talking."
Crafty Jordan didn't mean exactly what he said.
He would stop talking, if convinced, but he didn't intend to be convinced. He was after Dick Prescott's scalp. Jordan well knew that, at West Point (and at Annapolis, too, for that matter) class action against a man is severer and more irrevocable than even any action that the authorities of the Military Academy itself can take. He wanted to put Prescott wholly in the wrong in the matter. Class action could, at need, drive Prescott out of the corps and end his connection with the Army. For, if a man be condemned by his class at West Point, the feud is carried over into the Army as long as the offender against class ethics dares try to remain in the service.
At the least, Jordan hoped to stir up class feeling to such an extent that, if Prescott were not actually "cut" by class action, at least his popularity would be greatly dimmed.
"So won't you take part in the meeting?" coaxed Jordan, as Cadet Stubbs moved toward the door.
"I don't believe I will," replied Mr. Stubbs. "I'd feel out of place in such a crowd, for I've always considered myself Prescott's friend."
"Do you place your friendship for Prescott above the dignity and honor of the class?" demanded Jordan.
Stubbs flushed.
"I don't believe I'll stay, Jordan, thank you. But I can offer you some advice, if you feel in need of any."
"Yes? Commence firing!"
"Go slow in your grudge against Prescott. Personally, I don't want to see either of you hurt."
"Oh, Prescott won't really be hurt," sneered Jordan. "He told me flatly that he'd decline any calling out that I might attempt."
"You---you didn't try to call him out, did you?"
"I hinted that I might do so."
"Call him out for reporting you?"
"Oh, I didn't specify what the cause of the challenge would be," returned Jordan airily and with a knowing wink.
"Jordan, old fellow, you don't mean that you'd call a cadet out for reporting you officially? Why, that's against every tenet we have. And if such a challenge came to the ears of the superintendent, or of the commandant of cadets, you'd be fired out of the corps before you'd have time to turn around twice."
"Who'd carry the tale that I did call Prescott out?" retorted Cadet Jordan, with a knowing leer.
"Prescott would, if he were a tenth part of the bootlick that you represent him to be," replied Stubbs.
"Better stay, old man; and I'll call in a few others."
"No, sir," returned Cadet Stubbs, with a shake of his head. "The further I go into this matter the less I like it. I'm on my way, Jordan."
Within half an hour, however, Cadet Jordan had found three members of the first class who were willing to listen to him. The matter was threshed out very fully. Jordan, to his listeners, pooh poohed at the idea that he was "sore" on his own account. He posed, and rather well, as the champion of first-class dignity.
"I think you're on the right track, Jordan," assented Durville rather heartily. Durville was one of the few who had never liked Dick well. Durville had always been one of the "wild" ones, and Prescott's ideas of soldierly duty had grated a good deal on Durville's own beliefs.
"The class won't take severe action, anyway," hinted Tupper. "We might vote to give Prescott a week's 'silence,' but any permanent 'cut' would be out of the question. The man has done too many things to make himself popular."
"Besides," chimed in Brown, "look at the place Prescott holds on the Army football eleven. Why he---and Holmes,